AC Installation in Plano, TX
A new air conditioner in Plano will run from May through October every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Collin County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Plano asks a lot of a new air conditioner
Your air conditioner runs May through October here, six months a year, with summer afternoons averaging 93°F. That is a long stretch for a unit to hold up under and it will run hard most days it works.
Plano also sees its share of hail and wind. The last ten years brought 283 hail events and 86 damaging wind events, with hailstones as large as 5.25 inches. The outdoor unit sits outside through all of it, so the condenser and its coil take the weather along with the heat. Any new central air conditioner installed today has to meet a federal minimum of 14.3 SEER2, so the installer will start from that baseline and size the unit to the six months of work ahead of it.
- 6 months
- May through October, your air conditioner is on duty
- 93°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 283 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 13.4 SEER2
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A higher-efficiency unit would save about $30 a year to run in Collin County compared with a new unit at the federal minimum.
Estimates for a typical Collin County home, from EIA household energy data, Texas fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Texas requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
Texas licenses through TDLR, and that license belongs to the contractor's business, not to your specific install. It stays on record from one job to the next rather than being issued fresh each time, which means the state has tested and tracked the company before it ever gets to your house.
The license covers who is allowed to do the work. Whether your install gets checked comes from somewhere else. In most Texas cities and counties, installing an air conditioner needs a permit from the local building office, and an inspection once the work is done.
Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation
- What size air conditioner does my house need?
- The right size depends on your home's square footage, layout, insulation, window count and orientation, so it takes a load calculation to get a real answer. A unit that's too big cools the air fast but shuts off before it pulls the humidity out, leaving rooms clammy. One that's too small runs constantly and still can't keep up on a 93°F afternoon. A contractor can walk your house and run the numbers rather than guess off square footage alone.
- Should I replace the whole system or just the outdoor unit?
- In most cases you replace both together. The outdoor condenser and the indoor coil are matched to work at a specific capacity and efficiency, and pairing a new condenser with an old coil usually means losing efficiency and sometimes voiding the warranty on the new part. If your indoor coil and ductwork are still in good shape and the units are close in age, a contractor can tell you whether a matched swap makes sense for your system. Age matters too. If the system is old enough that the outdoor unit is failing, the indoor coil is usually not far behind it.
- Do HVAC contractors in Plano need a state license to work on my home?
- Yes. Texas requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license, issued by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Ask to see the license number before work starts, and you can look it up directly with the state to confirm it's active.